Urda train crash: at least 68 dead after AVE hits Iryo Urda train crash in Toledo: at least 68 dead and dozens injured after an AVE struck an Iryo train. High-speed services between Madrid and Andalucia suspended. At least 68 dead as AVE train strikes Iryo service near Urda At least 68 people have died and dozens more have been injured after a Renfe AVE high-speed train collided with a stationary Iryo service near the village of Urda, in the province of Toledo, on Wednesday morning. It is the worst rail disaster Spain has seen in decades, and it has severed the high-speed link that carries thousands of passengers between Madrid and Andalucia every week, including large numbers of British and other foreign residents of the Costa del Sol who rely on the route for flights, business and family visits. What happened on the line The collision took place at around 08:53 at kilometre 118 of the high-speed line, in open country between the towns of Mora, Orgaz and Urda. The Renfe AVE, travelling from Madrid to Sevilla, ran into the back of the Iryo train while it was stopped on the same stretch of track. Several carriages of the Iryo service were derailed in the impact, with some left hanging down an embankment beside the line. The AVE's locomotive also came off the rails. The Renfe train had departed Madrid's Puerta de Atocha station at 08:00 carrying 397 passengers, with an advertised arrival at Sevilla Santa Justa of 10:39. Both services were busy, as is typical for a mid-morning departure on one of Spain's most heavily used intercity corridors, and most passengers on board were travelling onward to the Andalucian capital or beyond. The death toll was issued by the regional government of Castilla-La Mancha and remained provisional for much of Wednesday, as rescue teams continued working at the crash site into the afternoon. Injured passengers were taken to hospitals in Toledo and Madrid, with a number of them described as being in a serious condition. How the control room handled the fault Attention is now turning to decisions made inside the Adif control centre at Atocha in the moments before the crash. According to the account given by the Ministry of Transport, the line's automatic safety system, known as LZB, failed at around 08:32. That failure halted several trains on the stretch and left controllers managing traffic manually for a period, a procedure that exists precisely for situations where the usual electronic safeguards drop out. At 08:36 the control centre cleared the affected trains to resume normal running, an instruction that included the AVE later involved in the collision. In the minutes that followed, the driver of the Iryo train reported that its systems would not restart and that the train remained stopped on the line. Based on the government's account so far, that warning did not lead to an order halting the approaching AVE. Under the protocol for operating without the standard signalling system, trains are supposed to proceed on sight only, effectively at walking pace, capped at a maximum of 40 kilometres per hour. Instead, the Renfe service was cleared to continue at normal speed, closing the gap on the stationary Iryo train far faster than the fallback procedure allows. What it means for getting to and from Andalucia High-speed services between Madrid and Andalucia have been suspended altogether, and Renfe has cancelled trains on the corridor while emergency crews finish work at the site and investigators carry out their examination. Anyone with a journey booked between Madrid, Cordoba, Sevilla or Malaga should expect cancellations and lengthy delays for the rest of the week, and should check directly with the operator rather than assume services will run on the printed timetable. This is the second serious incident on this corridor in recent months, and it lands at a moment when the line was already under scrutiny over maintenance and signalling reliability. For homeowners, expats and visitors on the Costa del Sol who use the AVE to reach Malaga from Madrid, or to connect onward to the capital for flights, the disruption is likely to ripple through journey planning well beyond this week, particularly if the investigation prompts a wider review of how control centres handle manual running during system faults. Our thoughts are with the families of the victims and with all those injured. *Photo: Fedekuki, CC BY-SA 3.0*